


next time

by babybel



Category: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Stoppard
Genre: Discussion of Death, Limbo, M/M, Post play, Reincarnation, circular story, ish?, more like repetition, set after their deaths, they're dumb and goofy and philosophical and they're in love, they're in love....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 13:18:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19085833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babybel/pseuds/babybel
Summary: rosencrantz and guildenstern have time for one talk in the space between death and whatever comes next.





	next time

**Author's Note:**

> i'm Enamored by this play... it's So Wonderful

“Hello?”

“Rosen- Guil-” 

“Who’s there?”

“Me; I’m here. I’m there? Should you really be asking, ‘who’s there?’ if we’re both in the same place? Because if we both exist in the same place, I don’t think there’s a ‘there’. I think there’s a ‘here’, and any ‘there’ would have to be a different place, but, seeing as we’re in the same bloody place-” 

“Are we in the same place?” 

“I don’t know.”

Silence. 

“Who’s- here?” 

“You already-”

“Right, but-” 

“It’s me, obviously. I’m here. And-”

“Yeah, me. Me too.” 

Silence. 

“Have you got a match?”

“If you’re really here, then I suppose I have.” 

“No, I- no. No. A match for striking. A match that starts a fire.” 

“Oh, right. Um, let me- hang on. I think you had them.” 

“Did I? Because I clearly remember-” 

“No you don’t, you don’t remember anything.” 

“What?”

Silence. 

“Neither do I. I think it’s okay, though.”

“How could it be okay? How on earth could it be okay?”

“We never remembered things that well anyway. Just check your pockets.”

Silence. 

Some hands in some fabric, the scratch of a match-head on the striking strip. 

Light. 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern stand inches apart, surrounded by absolutely nothing. It’s dark nothing, and it’s everywhere. They’re standing on it, in fact. Standing on nothing. The fact that they’re standing is probably a personal choice. They know standing so they stand. They’ve never floated before, but here, they could do that too. 

They look tired, but they’ve always looked tired. Guildenstern holds the match between thumb and forefinger, and although it’s burning it’s not burning down. It won’t have to be dropped to avoid singed fingers any time soon. It seems in stasis. They look relieved to see each other, but they’ve only ever been relieved when they can see each other. 

“Oh,” Guildenstern says. 

“Oh what?”

“You’re really here.” 

“I’m here for sure.” Rosencrantz smiles. “I don’t know about really.”

“Ros, what do we  _ do _ ?” Guildenstern looks some subtype of upset. 

“Anything we want, I think,” Rosencrantz says. “I think we have all the time in the world.”

“Or we don’t,” Guil replies. “Or we don’t, and this is just transitional, just between whatever it was we came from and whatever it is we’re going to, and we’re just waiting. This could end at any second, it could end in five, four, three- and we wouldn’t have the slightest foresight! We think we have time because we’ve had time insofar but in a place where we know nothing-” He’s yelling. “-about what the hell is going on, there’s no precedent! There’s nothing to base hypotheses on, and it could end right now, and we just don’t guess it will because it hasn’t in the past minute and a half.”

Silence. 

“Oh, now you’re not going to say anything, is that what you’re-”

“Question.” Ros isn’t looking at Guildenstern but instead at the match. “If time were passing your match would be burnt out. And there’s an end to something if and only if time passes to reach that end, and if time never passes…”

“You didn’t ask a question,” Guil says after a moment. 

“Well, I suppose the question is does that make you feel any better?”

Guil looks at the match as well. “A bit. Quite a bit.” 

“Good.” Ros smiles. 

Guil smiles as well. 

“Question,” Ros says, and he’s looking at Guildenstern instead of at the match. 

“Shoot.” 

“When you said-” He sighs. “When you said, ‘we’ll know better next time’. What did that mean?”

Guildenstern goes to sit down and realizes that floating is a possibility. He floats. “I don’t know what you’re on about.” 

“Yes you do, it was right before you- well, it was right before you…” 

“I don’t remember.”

“Don’t you?”

Silence. 

“I do.” Guil hands the match to Rosencrantz. “It’s just that the player had just been going on and on about stage deaths, and he got right back up after I- and you were gone, so it didn’t seem real - I think we only really exist when it’s the both of us - and I wanted- I wanted so badly to get another go. I knew we’d made such a fixable mistake, I knew there was an easy way to make things okay.”

“What was it?”

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what went wrong. Don’t even recall what there was to fix.”

“Well, it’s a poetic statement nonetheless.” 

“You think?”

“I do think.” Ros hands the match back to Guildenstern. “This isn’t so bad.” 

“Could be better.” 

“How?”

“I don’t know.” Guil holds the match out in different directions, coming up with nothing and nothing and nothing. “I’m a little peckish, I could do with a bite to eat.” 

“Other than that.” 

“Yeah, other than that it’s good.” 

“I think,” Ros says carefully, “that if you weren’t here I’d be dead. And if I weren’t here you’d be dead.” 

“What on earth are you saying?”

“I’m saying that we can’t be dead now, right? Because we’re talking to each other. But if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t be talking to anyone, and I think I’d be dead.” 

Guil considers. “That checks out.” Then he holds a hand over his mouth and catches a sob in his throat. Naturally. He’s just found out he could be dead. Deep breaths, a few of them. He straightens his jacket. 

Ros takes the match from him, just in case. “Are we alright?”

“I’m alright,” Guil says, and rubs his face. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m alright.” Ros smiles. “Good. We’re alright.” 

“Where do you get it?” asks Guil. 

“Hm?”

“Where does- where does it all come from?”

“I don’t follow.” 

“You always think everything is going to be okay.”

Ros shrugs. “I just… I don’t know. I just want to make you happy.” 

Silence. 

“I know.” 

“Oh!” Rosencrantz shows the match to Guildenstern. It just so happens that it’s begun to burn down. They have seconds left. “Shit!” 

“Shit,” Guil repeats, staring at the flame. 

Ros is panicking. “What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

“Don’t forget about me.” 

“I love you.”

“I love you too.” 

The match burns out. The darkness of nothing returns, kraken-like in its level of utter consumption. 

Silence. 

Two men sit somewhat together in a place of no outstanding characteristics. One of them has a bag that is nearly full, and one of them has a bag that’s nearly empty. They’re flipping coins. 

“Heads,” Rosencrantz calls. 

Guildenstern passes him the coin - heads it was. 

“Heads,” Ros says again. “Heads.” He keeps saying it, keeps collecting the coins. “Heads. 

Guildenstern looks up at him for a moment, flipping another coin. He can’t quite recall who he’s seeing. 

“Heads,” Ros says with an air of triumph sprinkled with a slight dash of ‘called it, I told you so’. 

Guildenstern looks harder, searches that face for anything of meaning, anything of consequence. Nothing, of course. 

Ros smiles at him, collecting the coin. 

Guil shakes it off, smiles back. It’s nothing. “There is an art to the building of suspense…”

**Author's Note:**

> surprise surprise i'm also enamored by cyclical storytelling fellas...


End file.
